Microsoft Research

Abstract

We explore creating ï¿½clipletsï¿½, a form of visual media that
juxtaposes still image and video segments, both spatially and
temporally, to expressively abstract a moment. Much as in
ï¿½cinemagraphsï¿½, the tension between static and dynamic elements
in a cliplet reinforces both aspects, strongly focusing
the viewerï¿½s attention. Creating this type of imagery is
challenging without professional tools and training. We develop
a set of idioms, essentially spatiotemporal mappings,
that characterize cliplet elements, and use these idioms in an
interactive system to quickly compose a cliplet from ordinary
handheld video. One difficulty is to avoid artifacts in the cliplet
composition without resorting to extensive manual input.
We address this with automatic alignment, looping optimization
and feathering, simultaneous matting and compositing,
and Laplacian blending. A key user-interface challenge is to
provide affordances to define the parameters of the mappings
from input time to output time while maintaining a focus on
the cliplet being created. We demonstrate the creation of a
variety of cliplet types. We also report on informal feedback
as well as a more structured survey of users.